Category Archives: Mytho-Poesis

It is hard to leave the familiar and present ways to return to the ancient ones, for appearances are delicious and the invisible is unbelievable.

– attributed to Hermes Trismegistus in The Message Rediscovered, by Louis Cattiaux

Much of what we encounter on a daily basis in the hyper-digitalized realms of our culture is little more than illusion and simulation of meaning. We are fat with idiocy having been fed on a prosaic puppet show that pretends to greater depth than it can ever possibly hold within the flimsy languor of image and imitation. Those aware of more subtle sensibilities know that there are immediacies that far outstrip anything which can be read or digitally digested. These immediacies must be approached within the humble confines of the everyday however, and are often overstepped by those eager for the promise of some more grandiose entrance into mystery.

I was driving back from Atlanta on the afternoon of December 31st, and decided to stop in at the Chapel of Our Mother of Many Names in Conyers, Georgia. This farm house chapel was the site of a series of Marian apparitions during the 1990’s, and has since become a beautiful and contemplative shrine complex dedicated to the Virgin Mary in all her forms. It seemed a good way to end the year, to sit for awhile in the farm house chapel and reflect on things under the auspices of the ever watchful ‘Mother of God.’

One of the great things about living in the southern United States is that you can still easily find gas stations that sell Lottery Dream Books. For those unfamiliar with them, these are small pulp print books that provide lists of common thematic elements appearing in dreams. Regarded as superstitious novelties by many, these books were once a cornerstone of gambling culture with the promise of offering insight into what numbers to pick on your next bet, as well as more general interpretations for symbols found in dreams and synchronistic events.*

What interests me about these simple manuals is their ability to systematize a symbol set which can be slowly memorized and tied to intuitive responses. Once the supernatural cover story is dropped, what you essentially have is a folk version of the art of memory with the intention of accessing dream states and day to day synchronicities to heighten intuitive functioning.

The ‘experimental counter-culture’ – its a wonderful term that highlights the potential of digital collaboration for enhancing the avant-garde experimentalism that produced some of the most deep reaching science of the 20th century. In an interview with pioneering consciousness researcher Dr. Charles Tart, Greg Taylor, Founder of The Daily Grail, highlights how science can become a rigorous adventure into the unknown:

GT: Do you think that the revolutionary work undertaken by individuals and groups in the 1950’s (such as the Round Table Foundation) had an influence on the rise of the experimental “counter-culture” of the 1960’s and 70’s…or were they simply parts of a larger trend in the way humans thought about themselves?

CT: No, I’m sorry to say that Puharich’s research has been almost totally ignored by scientific parapsychologists at the time and since then. I fear this has been a big loss. Puharich had a lot of influence in more fringy, “New Agey” circles, but that has not resulted, to my knowledge, in any solid scientific discoveries. As to the counter-culture, that was created by a combination of existential discontent with a shallow, materialistic culture, plus a desire for actual spiritual experience, not just being told what to believe, plus the introduction of oriental meditation techniques – something you could actually *do* instead of just believe – plus psychedelic drugs, which showed many, many people that there were more profound experiences possible than consumerism – to vastly oversimplify a complex historical phenomena, of course.

The Round Table Foundation, mentioned by Greg, was the brainchild of Andrija Puharich. Consisting of a fully equipped laboratory set up in a rural location in Maine, the original group saw collaboration between figures such as psychedelic explorer, Aldous Huxley, the famous medium, Eileen Garrett, and a number of prominent socialites and inventors to create a think tank that put experimentation before assumptions and produced viable medical technology as well as insights into anomalous cognition and consciousness. As a protege of Puharich’s, Charles Tart’s own work would go on to influence the development of scientific investigations into Altered States of Consciousness, lucid dreaming and Out of Body Experiences. Continue reading →

“The ethereal nature of poetic resonances teaches us about the inner dimensions. It is up to us to immerse ourselves and trod through the gross associative landscape of common expectations to recognize the buried treasure in our midst. But no matter how strong and beautiful feeling tones may appear, they are still traps. The arrow of mind must not stop at any target. Hitting a target means grasping at some phenomena, whether it is a paradise or a hell realm. The pursuit of gnosis has no end. No stoppage point should deter its longing for the infinite. The goal is for the dynamism of the arrow to be realized as equal to the space in which it flies. The open nature of that dynamism usurps its linear motion, and a new aspect of its meaning becomes possible, and it is reborn. In this manner we approach En Sof, the unattainable. If the arrow stops and hits any target, contemplation is officially over.”

- David Chaim Smith

Living near the Georgia Guidestones, I am constantly reminded that the world is filled with strange frequencies. When Dr. Raymond Moody was developing The Dr. John Dee Memorial Theater of the Mind to facilitate his experiments with mirror scrying and the therapeutic effects of necromantic divination, he followed certain design principles aimed at developing a sense of temporal displacement in those who would enter the institute’s psychomanteum chamber hoping to manifest an apparition of a past loved one. He found that creating an environment where ideas of time and place are displaced through mismatching antiques and curios was a powerful way to draw the seeker out of their normal sense of self.

The town of Elberton, Georgia where the Guidestones are located, and really the entire surrounding area, needs no additional tweaks to accomplish this. Situated in the midst of antiquated farms, untended woodlands and the general pace of rural life one is immersed in an atemporal environment where contemporary influences mix freely with the decaying images of the past – dead memories dance in step with the living present to create an phantasmal environment that is prime for contemplative experimentation.

For your education and enjoyment, a short excerpt from The Inner Circle of Light’s Transcript from Deep Trance-Lecture No. 14.

In this excerpt we find E Yada di Shi’ite, as channeled by Mark Probert, offering advice on the benefits of meditation, and the difficulty in finding a good teacher:

“Now we cannot teach simple relaxation with any effective results to the student unless we can somehow get at that student’s mind to discover what is disturbing him. And undoubtedly, when we do get at that student’s mind we will discover that it is not one thing that is agitating him and keeping him jumping around like the Mexican jumping bean, it is many things. Many things that he has put into his unconscious self and covered up, and it has been rotting there. It has become a festering sore.

AUDIENCE: A garbage can with a lid on it!

That is right. And it has been sitting in the hot sun for a long time.

Audience: And these meditative processes actually kind of loosen the lid a bit.

That is right! That is right. The psychiatrist in your world, in your country…it is a great day for him. Only trouble is, many of these people (psychiatrists) are mentally and emotionally disturbed themselves.

Audience: I thought you were going to say that they were sitting on more garbage than the patient.

Often this is true. Unfortunately, as this is the case, you should consider yourself very fortunate indeed, can you encounter one that himself is clear enough to take care of you. ”

–
About the teacher:

E Yada di Shi’ite was born in Kaoti, the city of the temples in a civilization called YU. This civilization was located in the Himalayan Mountains, and existed some half million years ago. It consisted of 180 million people at the time when Yada was a Kata (Priest) and later a Yada (High Priest).

He was one of the heads of the mystical order called Shi’ite.

E Yada was killed in a violent quake that destroyed the civilization with 80 million people.

He was about 34 years old when he died and the YU civilization 1,024 years old when it perished.

About the channel:

A self described ‘Telegnostic from San Diego,” Mark Probert purported to channel the ‘Inner Circle – Teachers of Light” from 1949-1968. His first experience with a UFO occurred prior to Kenneth Arnold’s famous sighting which began the UFO craze in 1947.

For more information Click Here to head over to the Inner Circle – Teachers of Light webpage.

The following is a brief essay on klipot (Heb. shells) from the artist and contemplative David Chaim Smith. Currently undertaking 3 months of full retreat, he is releasing this piece to help those who are serious in pursuing deeper contemplative practice:

There is considerable confusion as to whether the klipot exist, and what they are or are not. The greater question is what is meant by the designation ‘exist’?

The view upon which this text operates does not invite concepts of being and non-being to be used as qualifying markers for phenomena. It is true that dark malevolent forces push and pull the human realm into distortions, and impressions of shadowed impulses persist throughout all the worlds. It is far better to hold these forces according to the essential nature shared by all phenomena.

This is only En Sof.

In this sense, even the worst klipot are primordially pure. Klipot are no different in essence from any of the structural limitations which shape the worlds. They lock cognition into limitation. When they do so in a manner which obscures and obstructs the free passage of mind, it is called klipah. In this sense, the difference between the lights and vessels of the worlds and the klipot becomes hazy. Klipot represent a function, not a domain in itself. In the view of this style of gnostic contemplation, when any phenomena obscures and obstructs gnosis it should be treated as klipah. In this manner the imperative for continual breakthrough is clear, and is reinforced in each encounter.

Beyond the question of existence and non-existence is a vivid living dream in which phenomena is free to be fluid, wild, and erratic. This includes both so-called ‘good’ and ‘evil’ associations for conventional religious doctrines. This can be a tremendous sidetrack for a contemplator who might have no interest in religion. Occultists are sidetracked in another way; by the silly dark glamour of the power of the klipot. Both the adolescent mage and the fretful religionist share the habit of reifying phenomena. The solution to both is a shift in view.Continually holding to primordial purity mitigates the rigid sense of reality, but not its vividness. Through the aspect of the vividness of its ever-changing continuum, primordial sparks can break through the superficiality of their mundane shells. Holding the gnostic view can dissolve these prison cells, and ultimately break its momentum free to join into one’s practice. Facing the klipot, like facing any kind of phenomena, is pure spiritual practice. Its strength and disposition is shaped in each moment, and in turn, shapes the meaning of our life.

The klipot are thickened echoes of the primordial tzimtzum which opacify and uphold the structure of the worlds. In this sense they perform a viable function. However the mystic is not satisfied abiding within limiting structures. The goal of mysticism is realization of the inherent essentiality of phenomena, which is En Sof. This can only be approached by an aspiration to penetrate the shells of every world. This aspiration should not be confused with ordinary goals, which point to a destination at the end of a linear path. This is inherent in every aspect phenomena. It is a disposition of continual breakthrough, always penetrating deeper and further, without end. What the mystic ultimately realizes is that this process never reaches anywhere. In the endless reaching the accomplishment is clear, inherent in the gnostic view and its practice.

Each klipah forces perception to a capacity, and then blocks further expansion past that point. Dissolving successive klipot is the basis of spiritual work. Each step introduces a set reflexes which shape the manner in which the universe appears, both in its inner and outer aspects. The general perception and understanding of what the universe and its laws are is a byproduct of the collective habit field of the klipot of the human realm.

This is elaborated upon by the individual klipot which are specific to each human mind. As well, both the collective and individual contexts have their respective inner and outer aspects. This complex network of klipot constitutes the general realm we share, and also keeps the world appearing differently to each human being. Each micro-klipah opens an incremental vista of primordial expanse. As breakthroughs dawn, former obstacles reveal treasures which ornament space with unfolding variation, each bit at a time.

–

David Chaim Smith (b.1964) is an artist, contemplative practitioner and writer based in Brooklyn, New York. He was educated locally and attended Rhode Island School of Design where he gained a BFA in drawing. In 1989 he graduated from Columbia University with his Masters.

In his long engagement with contemplative work he has found new methodologies, most notably those for approaching a non-dual perspective via a Gnostic-tantra praxis. Since 1998 he has continued this work through the language of Chassidic mysticism and traditional Hebrew Kabbalah through the devotional approach of Breslov.

In 1999 David encountered The Fountain of Wisdom, a text that has survived as a 13th century manuscript in the Vatican Library. He worked with the text for many years, drawing from his experiences as an ecstatic visionary artist. In 2004 he made a breakthrough in interpretation with the development of ‘graphic maps,’ and within a few years had reached a degree of fluency that allowed him to transfer their syntax and visual vocabulary to works of art.

His series of drawings such as Machinery of the Apparitional Playground (2007-2008), Blood of Space (2008-2009) and The Sacrificial Universe (2009 to date) are numinous examples of his progress. As a writer and artist whose creative engine is fuelled by a devotional approach to ecstatic visionary mysticism, a unique dimension of David’s work stems from aspects of ideational contemplation considered as a mystical path.

Smith’s most recent work The Blazing Dew of Stars is currently available in a strictly limited edition from Fulgur Limited (Click Here for details)